A devout Muslim, his sister has said he fell in with extremists during the war (possibly followers of Alija Izetbegović.) As a result he was tortured by the Serbian army; he has boasted his torture was carried out under the direct orders of Serbia's then-President Radovan Karadžić. Wherever the orders for his torture came from, when he escaped from captivity, he and his sister fled the country, apparently prior to the end of hostilities in 1995. According to ICE records, the Zergins entered the United States of America in 2002, so it is possible that they first took up refuge somewhere in Europe.

Whatever the sequence of events, they arrived in New York in 2002 and immediately applied for asylum. As they waited for their case to be reviewed, Milan got a hack license, while Nina went to work cleaning offices. And then, one night around 2005, Nina was attacked and raped by Gabriel Duvall, the eccentric heir to the Duvall fortune.

When he discovered his sister had been raped, he attacked then-Assistant District AttorneyCasey Novak, mistakenly believing that Novak would make Nina's rape widely known, and put her in the hospital. This had the unintended effect of sidetracking the efforts to convict Duvall. He is serving 7-10 years in prison for assault. (SVU: "Night")